


Not Alone (But Lonely Anyways)

by Polska_1999



Series: Come Home Safe [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Iron Man 1, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, Tony Stark is Missing in Afghanistan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 07:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14950716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polska_1999/pseuds/Polska_1999
Summary: Three days ago, Pepper had gotten a call from Colonel James Rhodes with some of the worst news in her life: Tony Stark had gone missing in Afghanistan.She had no clue why she ended up driving out to Tony's Malibu mansion, but now that she was here, she may as well go in.





	Not Alone (But Lonely Anyways)

_ “I’m sorry, Pepper. I swear to you, we’re doing everything in our power to find him and bring him home…” _

If someone had told her five years ago that she would cry upon hearing that Tony Stark — genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and egoistic jerk — was missing, she would have stood up and kicked them out of the room personally with her high heels. And yet, here she was, crying over her boss and constantly reliving the moment, constantly thinking of the call she had received from Colonel James Rhodes, one of the few people in the world patient and crazy enough to maintain a friendship with Tony Stark. The call had came three days ago, and yet with every time she thought of it, the wound reopened once more, hurting just as much as it had when Rhodey gave her the news. 

She wiped away her tears as best as she could, sniffling. The bright rays of the brilliant sun overhead were too happy. Shouldn’t it know better? Shouldn’t it recognize what had happened? Shouldn’t it be mourning, or at least allowing others to mourn? Where were those darkened and gloomy rain clouds when their symbolism was called for? How dare they forsake the duties that were described of them in the books of old, in the legends and the myths?

In a rare act of slight violence unusual for her small and seemingly gentle form, Pepper slammed her fist against the edge of the steering wheel. Pathetic, that’s what she was. For lord’s sake, she was sitting in a parked car; if that wasn’t enough, the car was parked outside her missing boss’s Malibu home. In most other situations, such a thing would have been considered fine, considered nothing more than a caring worker making sure that their boss’s house didn’t fall into disarray while the boss was gone. Sadly, this wasn’t part of “most situations.” In most situations, the boss didn’t have an incredibly advanced AI capable of maintaining the house for years if necessary. (And she sure hoped that it wouldn’t be years, because even now, Tony’s chances of coming home alive are incredibly slim.)

She couldn’t just stay there. Even when Tony’s lack of friends and family only became more apparent with his kidnapping, she knew someone might still come here. Maybe, she then considered, Tony’s close family friend Obadiah might need to grab something from the house, like a piece of paperwork that had inevitably ended up with either whiskey or coffee stains on it and still lacked a signature from the big man CEO. Happy could show up for one thing or another, too, or even just to “check in on the house,” as Pepper was using as her excuse. 

Pepper gasped suddenly. Of course — how could she have been so stupid? The house isn’t completely empty, after all.

Her excuse for being here suddenly validated itself. She reached for the door handle with a newfound energy, the sudden strength stemming from concern and slight desperation. Her body went on autopilot as she pushed open the door and stepped out of the car, wiping away a few more loose tears with her stylish (and expensive) jacket. Her high heels clicked gently as she walked, the clicks reverberating as she reached the entrance to the house. She didn’t even get the chance to search for a key as a soft click sounded from the lock. She took that as a gesture of welcome and blinked away any tears that still threatened to spill before opening the door and stepping inside.

The house was familiar as always to her in most ways, although the silence was a solemn reminder of what was missing. The windows were all tinted slightly, although she was uncertain if the tint had been at Tony’s request before he left the house or if the residential AI had enough of Mother Nature’s lack of cooperation and tinted them for symbolic purposes. (The first answer probably made more sense, but rationality was never a strong point when it came to dealing with Tony Stark.)

“JARVIS?” She called out uncertainly, the feeling of being completely alone in this house shaking her rather quickly. “You there?” She knew that this was Tony’s AI, that it probably had no obligation to answer her, but damn it, it allowed her into the house for a reason, had it not? 

“ _ At your service, Miss Potts, _ ” came the cool, accented voice of the AI. 

Pepper released a breath that she hadn’t noticed she was holding… and then promptly realized that she had no clue what to say. This wasn’t some press conference where she could force vague answers past gritted teeth while resisting the urge to smack the next reporter into kingdom come for blatantly asking her one of  _ those _ questions, a question that was as insensitive as it was personal and damn it had she sometimes hated Tony in that moment for making such questions relevant in the first place. No, this time, she entered the house of her own will, spoke to the AI of her own volition. She couldn’t just half-ass this as if she were dealing with the press. Crazy and insane as it may sound, Tony considered the AI (along with his bots, but that’s another story) as family, and she had to respect that. 

“How are you doing?” She asked, then immediately recoiled mentally, scolding herself internally. Of all the questions to ask, that had to be the absolute worst. JARVIS wasn’t a person that she could ask questions like that of. He was the house, the robot butler, the AI that babysat Tony whenever it was past her work hours, the thing that kept her boss alive before she started working here. (She knew that last one for a fact — the person who had been PA before her had been even more of a wreck than the boss himself and sent her both thank-yous for accepting the role and apologies for having to deal with the boss. Both types of letters ended up burned in the fireplace the next time Tony asked her to set it up for him.)

“ _ My servers are 100% operational, although I am currently running at only 7% of my max processing power and taking up 9% of the electrical currents allotted to my systems.” _

Part of Pepper wanted to laugh in relief at how comforting the semi-mundane answer was. Another part of her wondered if the AI was too avoiding talking about the elephant in the room, although yet another part of her wanted to dismiss that as impossible, that surely it wasn’t capable of conversational tactics like that. Then again, Tony had been a sort of master at avoiding heavy topics, and if the AI learned from observation, then it had every right to know how to do this. 

“Did anything happen here since… over the past three days?” Pepper asked, self-conscious of her phrasing. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words  _ since Tony went missing in Afghanistan _ . 

“ _ Mr Stane spent a few hours in the residence yesterday, but otherwise the premises have been both secure and empty. I have taken the liberty of organizing all of sir’s incoming voicemails and emails as they arrive. _ ”

So she had been right to expect the possibility of someone else having been here when she showed up, albeit she did miss him by a day. Oh well. Not that she was complaining — Obadiah was a good friend of the Starks, and was thus likely suffering just as much as she was, if not more; she didn’t need to worry him with her own tears and pain, too. Instead, she allowed herself to focus on the AI, finding that talking with it helped calm some of her nerves. 

“That’s good, it’ll mean less work if he comes home,” Pepper commented, then immediately felt as her own words stabbed through her own heart.  _ If. _ Not when; if. This time, Tony’s really in trouble. It’s not some ameteur ransomer who doesn’t even remember to use a burner phone, not some guy that already had a history of hating Tony, not even some tech-savvy asshole who was super careful yet still underestimated the processing power and abilities of Tony’s extremely advanced and equally protective AI. This time, they have no idea who it could be; they don’t even know if Tony is still alive. For all they know, this could already be a search and recover mission instead of a search and rescue mission.

Pepper suddenly needed to sit down. 

She strode over to the couch and sat down, vaguely aware of the waterfall wall as the water rushed down and was collected at the base before being sent back up again. She released a shaky breath as she leaned back on the $12,000 couch (that Tony used to always let people eat on anyways despite the couch’s expensive price tag), trying to gather herself together. Part of her regrets coming here. 

Her phone suddenly rang, but she ignored it for now. More likely than not, it was some journalist or other CEO that wanted to “cash in” on Tony’s disappearance. Like hell she was going to let them. She already had several calls like that, and she only made the mistake of answering them a few times. It was always the same: a greeting, then saying that they’re sorry for what happened, and then a bunch of loaded questions. No thanks, she’s not dealing with that right now.

“ _ Miss Potts, Colonel Rhodes is calling, _ ” she smooth voice of the AI informed her.

If anyone saw her move next, they might have thought she was inexplicably struck with lightning, or perhaps that she turned into the Flash for an instant, grabbing her phone quicker than should be possible. Leaving herself a mental reminder to later say thank-you to the AI, she accepted the call on her phone. “Rhodey?” She prompted, bypassing formal title and name. There’s not a lot of things this could be about, and this may be it, the call that changes everything. 

“Miss Potts?” The tone was neutral, and Pepper felt her hope simultaneously die and flicker to life. Nothing good, but… nothing bad, either. Pepper confirmed that it was her, although she paid little attention to her own words, wanting to know why Rhodey called her as soon as possible. “We ID’ed all of the remains found at the ambush site. None of them matched Tony.”

Pepper sighed with relief. Tony wasn’t confirmed dead, at least. They hadn’t considered it to be a huge possibility, but given what she knew about the state of remains after bombs, she could imagine that there had been some uncertainty about which remains were whose and if any belonged to the rich playboy genius. “Thank you, Colonel Rhodes,” she said quietly, addressing him more formally than she had before. 

“We’ll find him, Pepper. Right now, we’re following the direction the attack came from and hoping it leads to more clues, and we’ve got teams sweeping all other possible areas looking for him,” he told her, not as a colonel but as Tony’s friend. She filed that information away, making sure to remember to never mention it to anyone. This was private; this was Rhodey trusting her, just as Tony trusted her. She thanked him again, not asking for more information, knowing that he already gave her more info than he should have. The ending of the call was nothing but a blur to her memory, and once Colonel Rhodes hung up, she let her phone drop onto the sofa cushion next to her. 

From the corner of her eye, she saw one of JARVIS’s displays activate and some stuff move around on it. She had no doubt that the AI heard the entire call, and she wasn’t really bothered by it. Again, the AI was family, and whether Pepper liked it or not, she had to respect it. Besides, if there was anyone who could use Rhodey’s information to help the efforts to find Tony, it was JARVIS. She wasn’t going to tell it off for worrying (could an AI worry? Was it capable of that?) or for trying to find Tony. 

The house felt just a little less haunted and a bit more like a home. 

Pepper hadn’t planned on staying too long at the mansion, but after that call, she felt little motivation for moving off of the couch. JARVIS wouldn’t mind if she stayed, right? At least a few more minutes — she probably shouldn’t drive right now. The call may have not solidified anything about Tony’s situation, but it was something. Maybe Tony’s chances of returning alive increased by a fraction of a percent. Either way, driving was definitely out of the picture. She didn’t trust herself to focus on the road, not when she had one small answer and even more questions circling in her head, all centered on someone who already took the center stage in her life’s events more often than not over the past few years. Sure, she technically could have called Happy to pick her up, but she preferred not to bother him, so instead she settled comfortably on the couch.

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but when she did, she dreamt of her boss. It was probably the least appropriate topic to dream about, especially considering Tony’s habits, but whatever. She couldn’t command her dreams. And if the central air system turned on so that she wouldn’t be cold while she napped, then perhaps JARVIS truly didn’t mind her company. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> First attempt at a Pepperony fic! I think I did pretty okay with it, all things considered. I appreciate all kudos, comments and bookmarks. Who knows -- maybe this small oneshot will bring about an entire series? Only time will tell...


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